Learn to paint every detail of the dog for perfect portraits Hair We come to the thorny subject of hair, or should I say, fur? In my view, fur is short and tight to the skin, while hair is long and flowing. There are some dogs who have very tight hair which seems so close to the skin that it is like velvet: these include Beagles, Doberman and Bulldogs. I call this type fur. Then there are long-haired varieties in which the hair is very distinct, such as Afghans, Bearded Collies and English Sheepdogs. I call this type hair. These two extremes create very different painting demands. Then there are dogs which have a mix of the two, such as the Chinese Crested. Nevertheless, both require the approach of creating an underpainting first before painting the top coat. Nose We are aware of the dog’s sense of smell from the more obvious fact that they point their noses in the direction of a smell, to the use of dogs for searching and detecting drugs, explosives and even serious illnesses such as cancer. When it comes to painting, the nose is very important. If the portrait is facing towards you the nose is the nearest thing to you, and to give a sense of three dimensions it has to be the most distinct and detailed feature that you paint. There are some distinguishing features of a nose that the artist needs to be aware of. Smooth, black, shiny noses are interesting to paint because you get a lot more reflective colours in them, but when they are dry and with lots of cracks and ‘bobbles’, they become more difficult. Sometimes you see an abnormality such as a pigment change and the owner might want you to show it by changing the direction of the face. Ears and tongue A dog’s ears have thee times as many muscles controlling them than a human’s! Those dogs which have upright ears, not surprisingly, tend to hear bett er than those with droopy ears. A dog’s sense of hearing is heightened by the fact that they can detect higher-pitched sounds at something like 45 kHz, while a human’s hearing operates up to 23 kHz. This has led rise to the invention of the seemingly silent dog whistle, which most humans can’t hear. You will usually need to paint two types of ear: the upright and the droopy. There are many quotes about the tongue and what we should and should not do with it, and it raises one of the questions I ask my commissioner: tongue in or out? Dogs use their tongues for food tasting, drinking or a drippy wet greeting, and as a radiator, healing instrument and salt-licking tool – especially off my balding head! Whether or not the tongue is often on show can be part of a dog’s character, so it is important to establish whether to show it or not. Eyes This is the part of painting dogs that most artists want to do first. The eyes are usually the smallest thing in the painting and the first thing that your viewer will look at. They have to be right. However, it’s no good painting the eyes if the rest of the dog is out of proportion, or the wrong colour, so I recommend you get everything else right fi rst. There is so much fi ne detail in the eyes, and if you do them fi rst the rest of the dog has to follow in the same style. First establish the position of the body and the ‘look’, for instance joyous, coy or contemplative, and then you can use the position of the eyes to accentuate that look. As with human eyes, light enters through the cornea and the pupil, which expands and contracts to control the amount entering. It then passes through the lens and hits the retina, where it is processed. The three projects in the book Willow Willow was a black & white Springer. She was getting on when I met her and she had been a devoted family member forever, so her owners wanted me to capture her essence in a painting. She was a working dog, particularly attentive to the father of the family. The day I was about to start this painting in the studio, she sadly passed away. This is how I put together any portrait on a square canvas. I used a block canvas for this commission, but you could use a gummed block of watercolour practice paper or a canvas board. I painted it with a mix of ultramarine and Mars black, before plotting the main points of the drawing on a diagonal grid. Alfie The leafy background for this painting was also used for the profile of Alfie shown earlier in the book. The objective of this project is to show how to shadow a white dog in extreme lighting. I have also chosen to open Alfie’s mouth and expose his tongue, showing that you can vary what you see in your initial photographs, using further reference photographs to help. Demelza and Kenzie Here I paint two dogs, but you can apply these methods to create compositions of multiple dogs. Demelza (left) and Kenzie are Irish ‘Red’ Setters from a long line of champions. Start with a graduated background. The photographs were lit from diff erent directions, but I have standardized the two. The emphasis is on the tonal underpainting which is then glazed over to get the top coat colour.
✔ Author(s): Dave White
✔ Title: Painting Dog Portraits in Acrylics: Creating Paintings With Character and Life
✔ Rating : 4.7 out of 5 base on (173 reviews)
✔ ISBN-10: 1782216170
✔ Language: English
✔ Format ebook: PDF, EPUB, Kindle, Audio, HTML and MOBI
✔ Device compatibles: Android, iOS, PC and Amazon Kindle
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